A good first half of the NL season has crowned Edgbaston overall Midland’s champions by triumphing over Nottingham, Duffield and last night Wolverhampton. Even though none of Edgbaston’s opponents were easy conquests, but the quite the opposite.
The opening match nearly saw Sarah Fitz-Gerald lose her unbeaten run to the British Open Over 45 Champion Liz Brown. Sarah squeezed the first game 9-7 against the home player who was unlucky not to take the opener. The second saw some lucky shots from the undefeated 5 times world champion who took the second 9-2.
Liz stepped up a gear and was again pipped at the post 10-8 giving the Commonwealth Gold Medalist a 3-0 win. An unbeaten record was nearly halted by the Wolverhampton champion said a local supporter. The reality of the match was Sarah giving the coach a lesson, a very entertaining game with Sarah playing in good spirit with Liz giving it everything, and covering the whole of the court in great details numerous times. Even the home player stating her undying love to the referee didn’t seem to work.
Meanwhile on the other court Peter Barker was making light work of Chris Ryder. Back from Qatar in the morning Peter showed no sign of tiredness and was ruthless in his victory. Chris, usually a relentless and clever opponent seemed lost against the strength and in form Barker. The Edgbaston player won reasonably comfortably 3-0, an exciting prospect viewing two talented young English players both in their own way, Peter playing full-time and Chris studying and managing to play at a top level.
Adam Stevenson graced the court against the experienced Darren Bradbury who shot out of the blocks trying to blast his opponent of the court early on. Adam was though too strong, too fast and too accurate beating the Wolverhampton player 3-0, not even the famous ‘tactics’ of Bradbury could force any weakness from Adam.
With the tie won Wolverhampton seemed to be playing for pride, and boy did they play well. Liam Kenny used his knowledge of the court to his advantage, clearly not fit he had to take control of the match. Liam controlled the first and faced two game balls against him in the second before coming back to go 2-0 up with a frame shot! Hadrian Stiff took advantage of a tired opponent, 9-2. Kenny needed to win the fourth otherwise it would have been 4-0 to Edgbaston, the home player started fast with intentions of winning 3-1. He was rewarded with what he deserved and clawed a well deserved point back for Wolverhampton.
The final match of the evening saw two giants of the game, Mark Cairns against Del Harris. Clearly Del’s bogey player Mark had control throughout the match beating Del 3-0 in a strange contest of Mark’s accuracy and Del’s inaccuracy (at one point Del meant to slide his racket on the court floor and it ended up over the top of the glass!).
A thoroughly entertaining night and the hospitality was fantastic.
